27 July 2014

[This post has been modified due to unreasonable pressure from certain parties. The point of the original post was to vilify Jeffrey Meyers' baseless claims and correct his horrendous research. If you are interested in reading the original post, please email me. Contact information available via the "About Sylvia Plath Info Blog & Contact Info" tab. --pks]

60 years ago today, on 27 July 1954, Sylvia Plath was featured in a photograph in the Boston Globe pointing at … wait for it … a globe! In the brief article "More Girls Than Ever at Harvard Summer School", Plath was photographed in the Widener Library with Everetta Rutherford of Columbia, South Carolina. It is difficult to determine at which country or continent Plath is pointing, but it might be India? That is neither here nor there... Also neither here nor there, it was just 11 months after the news broke that she had been found hiding in her family's basement in Boston and other U.S. newspapers after and all-out regional woman-hunt.

Sylvia Plath pointing at a globe in The Boston Globe, 27 July 1954.

According to Plath's calendar, held at Indiana University's Lilly Library, she was photographed for the Globe on 26 July 1954. This was a fairly innocuous event on what turned out to be a major day. She had German at 8 am and also at 11, and then English at 12 noon. From 1-2 she had lunch with someone called Lissy Snyder and at 3 pm she met with her psychiatrist, Dr. Ruth Beuscher. Another note in the corner for that day in the calendar has that she was going to the Library at 8:15. Plath also wrote "[Irwin's]". Plath has drawn an arrow pointing from "[Irwin's]" name on the 26th into the next day --the 27th-- that was directed toward another name: Dr. Heels at Mt Auburn [Hospital].

117 Lakeview Avenue,
Cambridge, Mass.

A relatively obscure figure until recently, "[Irwin]" now is the subject of a recent article by Jeffrey Meyers in the London Magazine entitled "Plath's Rapist" (June-July 2014, pp. 127-144). This is not Meyers' first foray into exploring the disappeared men in Plath's life; he published "Sylvia Plath's Mysterious Lover" in the Yale Review in October 2010 (pp. 88-102) on Richard Sassoon. According to Plath's address list in her 1954-1955 pocket calendar, "[Irwin]" lived at the time at 117 Lakeview Avenue, Cambridge (map). The driving distance between "[Irwin's]" residence and Mount Auburn Hospital is .6 miles; from the hospital it is .9 miles driving distance to Plath's summer rented apartment at 1572 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge (map; image); and to round things out, from Plath's apartment to "[Irwin's]" house it is 1.3 miles.

Reading Meyers' article got under my skin somewhat as this blog post shows. The premise of the article stems from a comment Plath is reported to have said to her then roommate Nancy Hunter: "He raped me" and quoted in Hunter-Steiner's memoir, A Closer Look at Ariel (64). Meyers seems to accept this as gospel but does not seem to take into account that if Plath actually said these words, that she might have been "saving face", as it were, given that Nancy Hunter had previously rejected "[Irwin's]" advances and appeared somewhat of an innocent. While Plath may have seemed outwardly fine around this time, roughly a year after her after her first suicide attempt and subsequent recovery, it is possible that after her encounter with "[Irwin]" that she was confused, frightened, and in something like shock at the result of this intimacy. Meyers does not consider that Plath's hemorrhage might equally have happened during the normal course of things, as it were, as in consensual relations and not necessarily as a result of rape.

Plath's words might have been expressed as she did not want to be judged or to get any kind of reputation. The truth is we do not know and we will never know. Meyers unfairly accuses, or rather convicts, "[Irwin]"of being a rapist when "[Irwin]" cannot defend himself. As well, this is unjust for the presumed victim, Plath, as she cannot either explain herself or the words she apparently uttered in a moment of frightening distress. Furthermore, if "[Irwin]" is innocent of rape this claim devalues genuine rape victims. It is a very dangerous article, a disappointing one for sure for other reasons, and feels like couch-research: done using the internet and books-at-hand with very little effort otherwise. As well, it is fairly cowardly to write that someone is a "rapist" and a "sexual predator" who had a "violent and sadistic brand of sex" when the defendant is no longer alive (139, 143). Had Meyers traveled to Indiana University he might have seen Plath's calendars which record numerous "dates" with "[Irwin's]" preceding the incident. As a result, Meyers account fails to give any understanding or context on the nature of the relationship between Plath and "[Irwin]". Some perspective would have been relevant.

The true nature of their acquaintance and the substance of their meetings is unknowable. As such, we rely on Plath's calendars, what she wrote down, and what she did not cross out. These calendars capture both intended activities as well as serves in some cases as a record of actual lived experiences. Sometimes, it must be stated, it is difficult to interpret between the two.

Cover of Plath's
1954-1955 Calendar

Plath arrived in Cambridge for summer school on Monday 5 July. Among other things on the 6th, she explored Cambridge, shopped, registered for classes, and saw the film Counselor at Law (imdb) at the Brattle Theatre. Classes commenced on the Wednesday the 7th, and later on that day she spent time at the Oxford Grille (then located at 32 Church Street (map) now the Border Café) drinking beer with Nancy Hunter and "[Irwin]". So, she met "[Irwin]" on 7 July or just before.

Plath's calendar records that she spent time with "[Irwin]" on the evening 13 July; the evening of 14 July; the evening of 19 July; and the afternoon of 22 July before the "events" of 26 and 27 July. Plath's documented activities were largely centered on studying at "[Irwin's]", as well as their having long talks, and taking meals together. None of this is to suggest that rape did not or could not have happened; but rather that the nature of the relationship was deeper than Meyers is capable of concluding based off of his research and as is present in his article, which again, appears to have been done at home and using online and biographical resources such as Carl Rollyson's American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath and Andrew Wilson's Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted. Fine sources in and of themselves, but far too secondhand in nature for what Meyers is attempting to do.

Back to the calendar… On Tuesday, 27 July, Plath's calendar shows that she again had German and English at 8, 11 and 12 noon; in the afternoon she was to study German from 2-5 and 7-11. But we cannot be sure if she did all these things given what appears to have happened between the night before. These plans were not crossed out which is often how cancelled plans often appear.

On Wednesday, 28 July, Plath's calendar again indicates she had classes at 8, 11, and 12 noon; also she had a big midterm exam that afternoon, and planned to be in Lamont Library at 3 pm. Plath also noted that she recuperated and cleaned the apartment. In the next couple of days, Plath spoke on the phone with Dr. Beuscher once and had two meetings with her at 3 pm both on Thursday 29 July and on Friday 30 July. On Friday 6 August Plath had a checkup with Dr. Heels and slept for 15 hours that night back home in Wellesley!

On Wednesday 11 August, just over two weeks later, Plath notes that "[Irwin]" called and he fails to make another appearance in the calendar until Sunday 31 October, when he visited Smith College. On that occasion, he and Plath spent the afternoon talking and drinking beer at Rahar's. Plath mentioned "[Irwin's]" Northampton visit in a letter to her mother dated 2 November. Plath was very much over him by this point and was quite dismissive of him in this letter. There are likely many things to conclude from the long duration between "[Irwin's]" appearances in her calendar in addition to the possibility that something untoward might have taken place in addition to the fact that not every activity was captured by Plath. For example, "[Irwin]" might have been out of town during some of that time or deeply involved with his research and/or teaching. Judging from Plath's schedule, she was inundated with studies and other boys: from Gordon Lameyer to Ira Scott Jr.; and spent a lot of time away from Cambridge herself in the duration of the summer. Other "[Irwinian]" occurrences are the 11 February 1955 letter mentioned in Meyers article; a note that he called on 6 April 1955 and they spent time together the evening of 9 April 1955; "[Irwin]"visited Plath again at Smith on 17 April 1955 and they went to Look Park, Rahar's and Wiggin's for dinner; and lastly Plath visited "[Irwin]" in Cambridge on 11 June 1955 for supper just after she graduated from Smith College.

An accusation of rape notwithstanding, there is much that is wrong with Meyers' London Magazine piece and contributes to my assessment that his research was somewhat lazy. There are a number of inaccuracies which deserve correction and clarification.

For starters, there the vaguest of interest shown in what "[Irwin]"was doing at the time in terms of his profession. Meyers writes, "In the late forties or early fifties he taught math at the prestigious MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts." This nonchalance is embarrassing. I contacted the archives at M.I.T. to inquire about when he was there, and was informed that he was listed in staff directors published between October 1951 and December 1958. In October 1951, January 1952, and December, 1952, he is listed as working in the Division of Industrial Cooperation. From December 1953 to December 1955, he was in the Division of Defense Laboratories, with an office at Lincoln Laboratories (located in Lexington, Massachusetts) starting in fall 1954. From December 1956 to December 1958, he is listed as a staff member of the Lincoln Laboratories. December 1958 appears to be the last time he appeared in the directory (the one for Spring 1959 is absent).

Meyers claims that the day after the incident with "[Irwin]", they went to Crane Beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts. One thing that is frustrating about this essay is there is very little citing of references and sources. There is no evidence for this in Plath's calendar (which I realize is not the end-all-be-all of accurate resources); the first mention of a visit to Crane Beach that summer is with Dr. Ira O. Scott, who first appears in SP's calendar on Wednesday 18 August. It is suggestive that Plath met him around this time as his appearance in the calendar is formal: "Dr. Ira Scott". Her first visit to Crane Beach with Scott appears to have been the following week on 25 August.

While discussing events of the summer of 1954, Meyers states that Plath "lost her virginity the previous year during her unhappy affair with Richard Sassoon..." (138). However, "the previous year" is incorrect as Plath met Sassoon on 18 April 1954 (as in the same year she met "[Irwin]"; Sassoon is first mentioned in a letter to her mother the following day, 19 April 1954). Biographically these are incidents that might have relevance but it feels awfully awkward to discuss Plath's private life. There seems to be no consideration or sympathy for how the relatives and descendants of both Plath's and "[Irwin's]" families might feel. And it is not lost on me that this blog post might not be helping! However, there are private experiences and there are private experiences…

Sadly Meyers writes that "The entries for the summer of 1954 are missing from Plath's Letters Home (1975) and Unabridged Journals (2000)" (138). Meyers should know that Plath did not keep a journal at this time. So, if something never existed can it be considered "missing"? Also, there would be no letters home this summer as Plath was within phone distance of communicating with her mother (where the phone rates were more reasonable and therefore cheaper than from Northampton).

In The Bell Jar it was not Esther's "roommate" (138) who drove her to the hospital, but Joan Gilling, her schoolmate from college and fellow asylum-resident who had been released and was living with a hospital nurse. Meyers should know better.

Meyers describes a photograph of "[Irwin]" from Ivy, the yearbook of Trinity College in Hartford. He writes of his "thick peasant features and a low Slavic forehead, with no glasses and a full head of dark hair". He really has it out for him! In the space of eight short pages, Meyers describes "[Irwin]" as being "physically unattractive"; having "peasant features"; of being a "rapist" and a "sexual predator"; and being a practitioner of a "violent and sadistic brand of sex". It is possible he aged a bit in the decade that passed between this 1944 photograph (you should know it is the same photograph that appears in the 1943 yearbook, too) and when Plath met him; but it is possible that Plath invented some unflattering characteristics to juxtapose Irwin in the novel against the all-American features of Buddy Willard and the Yalies that the magazine rounded up for some of the events during her guest editorship. Any corroboration with descriptions by Hunter in her memoir A Closer Look at Ariel might be coincidental or unconsciously done based on what Plath wrote in The Bell Jar.

Regarding Meyers' analysis of the poems that Plath sent to "[Irwin]": The poem titles in Meyers' essay appear out of the blue! There is no mention that the poems were listed in a letter from Donald Hall to Fran McCullough dated 11 January 1975, in which Hall quotes a letter that he had received from "[Irwin]". Probably because it was confusing to do so! According to Hall, who was quoting "[Irwin]", the poems Plath sent to "[Irwin]" in her letter dated 11 February 1955 were: "Temper of Time", "Dirge", "Dance [sic] Macabre", "Winter Words", and "Prologue to Spring". Meyers assumes, wrongly, that "Dirge" is Plath's sonnet "Dirge for a Joker" and therefore over-reads and over reacts to the poem to make it fit his theory. A common thing for "academics" to do. However, Plath's calendar informs that it is just "Dirge", a poem she wrote on 5 February 1955 with a parenthetical reference to the poems first line: "The sting of bees took away my father". This poem, later renamed to "Lament", was a villanelle. It also fits in, time wise, to the other poems Plath sent to "[Irwin]" as "Danse macabre" was written on 30 January 1955 (though listed in her calendar under as "down among strict roots & rocks" which is the first line of the poem); "Temper of Time" and "Winter Words" were written on 1 February 1955; again "Dirge" on 5 February 1955; and "Prologue to Spring" on 9 February 1955. We do not necessarily know when Plath's "Dirge for a Joker" was written, and in reviewing the calendars I could not find it listed.

Meyers writes: "Plath's reckless accidents in skiing, diving and horseback riding on 'Ariel' proved that she 'enjoyed' … dangerous situations…" (143). Diving? Plath's "reckless" experience "horseback riding" was with "Sam" in December 1955, not "Ariel" in 1962 who was considered, lore has it, to be a docile, older horse. And it was not necessarily that case that Plath was the instigator of these "reckless accidents"; in the situation with the horse "Sam" it was the horse that got spooked and unexpectedly took off into a gallop. Likewise with the skiing accident in December 1952: Plath was inexperienced, received poor instruction, and fell. Word choice, man! Reckless? Maybe it is a question of semantics. Please explain the claim of a "reckless" diving accident. Declaring that Plath's behavior was "reckless" is, I feel, discourteous and too judgmental.

Lastly, Meyers missed a golden opportunity to draw a unique coincidence between Plath and "[Irwin]". He is careful to note the date of the one letter we know Plath sent: 11 February 1955. However, even more coincidental (for lack of a better word), both Plath and "[Irwin]" passed away on 11 February. She obviously in 1963; he in 2007. If Meyers is writing now an article on Dr. Richard Norton, please do not fail to remark that Norton got married exactly one week before Plath did in June 1956. Jeffrey Meyers "Plath's Rapist" from the London Magazine is very disappointing and on the whole represents sloppy research.

All links accessed 15 June and 27 July 2014. Minor revisions to the text, 4 August 2014. Significant revisions 21 December 2014.

[The comments have been suppressed and disabled for this post due to borderline harassment I have received from an heir of the subject of Meyers' article. Should anyone want to see them, please email me via the contact information available on the "About Sylvia Plath Info Blog & Contact Info" page. It is a terribly sad day for scholarship when research pertaining to a deceased person is subject to censorship. --pks]

07 July 2014

This is a third blog post on articles authored by (or possibly/probably authored by) Sylvia Plath.
The first blog post was posted on 20 May 2014. The second was posted on 8 June 2014. This post discusses articles published or referenced to in letters from events Plath covered for Press Board in March, April, and May 1952.

In her sophomore year, Plath was active on the Smith College Press Board. Her letters home refer repeatedly to events she was covering. This presents us with tantalizing possibilities to either uncover original Press Board typescripts in the Smith College Archives, or anonymous articles as they appeared in newspapers in Northampton and Springfield, Massachusetts. In addition to her letters, Plath's calendars at the Lilly Library are perhaps the richest sources for biographical information of her college years. The calendars record particularly her activities with regard to campus events, classes, dates for tests and papers, dates with boys, social engagements, and meals, among other data. Her calendars featured the words "Press Board" or "cover" on so many occasions one could go blind and/or crazy trying to find articles she possibly authored.

In the absence of original, attributed typescripts, we are therefore relegated to searching for only those events Plath covered that she wrote about in letters or detailed in her calendars. In conjunction with the letters and calendars, there is further need for cross-referencing to gain information on her activities and to narrow down the events Plath attended by looking through copies of the Smith College newspapers, the Smith College Associated News and The Sophian, as well as the Smith College Weekly Bulletin. Massive thanks are due to Nanci Young, the College Archivist at Smith, and Diane Wieland, the College Archives Intern for their help to my remote queries.

On Thursday 6 March, Plath wrote to her mother that she the M.I.T. professor/communist Struik (Dirk Jan Struik) speak on 3 March (a Monday) and that she found him to be a compelling Marxist; and that the Press Board accepted her review nearly word for word. The letter was published, heavily edited and with these details cut out, under the wrong date --the postmark date-- in Letters Home. An article was published anonymously in the Springfield Union on Tuesday 4 March 1952, page 2, under the title "'Heresy Hunts' Menace Liberty: Struik Claims". Based on Plath's letter to her mother and the tone of the article I do believe this was the piece Plath authored.

On Wednesday 30 April, Plath wrote to her mother that she was covering five lectures in four days. Like the above, the letter was included in Letters Home and heavily edited, though was published under the correct day. The lectures Plath covered were Ogden Nash that night, 3 European student conference lectures on 1 & 2 May; and a "Friends" (probably Friends of the Library) meeting on Saturday 3 May 1952, which involved Smith alumnae who have great book collections.

Of all these events covered over those four days, there was only one article I found in searching the three newspapers for whom Plath regularly wrote while on Press Board (Springfield Daily News, Springfield Union, and the Daily Hampshire Gazette). There was an anonymous article reviewing the Ogden Nash reading printed on 1 May 1952 in the Springfield Union, page 30, with the title "Ogden Nash's Rhyming Knack Makes Up for His Talent Lack".

Oram and Nicholson both contribute excellent and introductory pieces that provide an historical overview and curatorial considerations (Oram) and information on the process of cataloging writer's private libraries (Nicholson), replete with jargon that for many will be like a foreign language. Both, however, are easy to read and expert, and complement the other pieces contributed by booksellers, academics, librarians, and writers. A library and/or archive can house myriad items. For the purposes of this book, Oram states that a writer's library is "a set of books or other printed works owed by the author at a particular moment in time" (1-2).

The use of books in a writer's library is expertly illustrated in Amanda Golden's chapter "Anne Sexton's Modern Library." In fact, it made me wish the volume contained more essays in this vein. Golden's scholarship is sound and well-presented. It shows how fascinating working with these books can be, and how illuminating it is to see the annotations and untraditional conversations Sexton had with author's and to consider their influence on her creative writing. Golden shows Sexton's reading reflects "a broader range of texts than critics may have previously assumed she had encountered" (66) and in consuming this chapter, I grew more eager for her forthcoming tome Annotating Modernism: Marginalia and Pedagogy from Virginia Woolf to the Confessional Poets to be published next year by Ashgate. It is bound to be a cornerstone work in this field.

The next essay, by the Curator and Rare Books Librarian at Emory University David Faulds, "A Poet's Library Times Two: The Library of Ted Hughes at Emory University" was a letdown in some ways. It is a fascinating topic, but the absence of a bibliography and very weak notes were a curious and disappointing oversight. As well, there was a fairly heinous error made in discussing books Plath's received for Christmas in 1954 on pages 79-80. In discussing the importance of a book Aurelia Plath gave to her daughter in Christmas 1954, Grimm's Fairy Tales in German, Faulds writes "In August 1954 Plath had attempted suicide by taking a large overdose of sleeping pills and in October was moved from Massachusetts General Hospital to McLean Hospital … This is where she was residing when her mother gave her this book as a Christmas present" (80). Faulds, who works at Emory and should have access to the correct information, gets the year Plath attempted suicide wrong. It was in August 1953. Aurelia Plath did give SP the book in Christmas 1954, which of course makes sense as in the summer of 1954 for this was after her daughter took German in Harvard Summer School and was enrolled in an Intermediate German course at Smith (as well as auditing a second German course) in the Fall of 1954. The gift of a German edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales makes much more sense contextually than to be so careless as to give her daughter a book in the midst of her recovery when, as part of the symptoms of her breakdown, it is reported that she lost some of her reading and writing capabilities.

Even if you have never worked with a writer's library, this book will resonate and take hold of you. It makes you want to seek out and find where the books that belonged to your favorite (dead) writer are now held. Or, if you are on the fence about it, consider what Oram writers in the first chapter: "the sense of direct, even mystical, communion with a deceased creative individual through an item which once belonged to him or her" (13). This is exactly what it is like, in my experience, when I have worked with the books and other archival materials formerly belonging to Sylvia Plath.

Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook includes a series of interviews with living writers with large libraries. About half the book is dedicated to a list of writers and the locations which hold their books. It is an indispensable resource guide to writers throughout many centuries.

Overall, Collecting, Curating, and Researching Writers' Libraries: A Handbook, edited by Richard W. Oram and Joseph Nicholson, marks a significant publication on a largely ignored but hugely important aspect to archives and special collections. So often the focus of an archive is on the manuscripts, photographs, and other evidences of life. This may be right, but while we take much from written correspondence, it is sometimes the case that a person's library contains hidden conversations with a published author. There is value in this line of study, as this book makes unequivocally clear.